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Three men wasted no time jumping onto the subway tracks to save a man who fell off the platform in the early morning hours Sunday, just before the next train rolled into the station. Roseanne Colletti reports. (Published Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013)

Three men jumped onto the subway tracks to save a man who fell off a Manhattan platform early Sunday, barely avoiding the next train rolling into the station.

A man in his 20s hit his head and stumbled onto the tracks at the 1 train platform at about 2:40 a.m. Sunday at the Columbus Circle station. The next train was schedule to arrive in two minutes. Garrett O'Hanlon, 22, jumped onto the tracks to rescue the stranger.

"I looked over and saw him down there, and everyone started to scream," the Air Force cadet from Dallas told NBC 4 New York Monday. "After that, it was almost like a blur, it happened so quickly."

Seeing O'Hanlon struggle with the unresponsive and bleeding man, 23-year-old Dennis Codrington jumped in to help, along with his friend from Poughkeepsie, 23-year-old Matt Foley.

O'Hanlon said the man was heavy and he couldn't lift him alone. His friend was happy to help.

"It was really surreal," said Codrington, a personal trainer for the fitness chain Equinox who lives in Manhatan's Washington Heights neighborhood. "I can't tell you what I was thinking when I was down there. The last thing I was thinking was just 'Get the guy off the tracks.'"

The three men were still struggling to lift the man on the tracks onto the platform when other straphangers pitched in.

"The people on the platform were pulling him up, pulling us up," said O'Hanlon. "It was like collaboration of teamwork."

The three heroes got up just in time. First responders rushed the unconscious man to a hospital. His condition was unclear.

Codrington soon boarded a train to go back to work, and O'Hanlon had a flight to catch back to the Air Force Academy in Colorado.

"To witness something like that, witness someone almost being killed, it just puts a lot of things in perspective for me," said Codrington.